‘Sibling’ Liberty Bell will ring on Cherry Street Pier to celebrate New Year’s Eve
It’s just one way the bell could figure into city’s semiquincentennial celebration
A 2,000-pound “sibling” bell, typically displayed at the National Liberty Museum at 4th and Chestnut, and produced by the same London-based foundry as the original, will be temporarily moved to the Cherry Street Pier as part of the city’s annual New Year’s on the Pier celebration Wednesday night.
Getting it there, however, will be no easy task.
“We’ve done a couple months of prep,” said Alaine K. Arnott, president and CEO of the National Liberty Museum, of the logistics of moving a one-ton piece of history for an outside event. “It’s the rental of a forklift, it’s getting a truck big enough to house it, it’s figuring out which route to take it through the City of Philadelphia …”
The bell — which features a replica of the original bell’s famed crack, as well as the functionality its sibling lacks — will be on hand for a pair of ticketed New Year’s Eve events on the pier.
The New Year’s Eve Kids Countdown — which includes music, crafts, and giveaways — runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the pier, with tickets on sale now for $27 per person. (Children two years old and younger are admitted free). Tickets for the pier’s 21-and-older event, which runs from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., are $32 and include a Champagne toast, cash bar, and optimal views of the fireworks.
The festivities will be anchored by a pair of fireworks displays, part of Visit PA New Year’s Eve Fireworks on the Waterfront. The first display is set to begin at 6 p.m., and the other at midnight.
(A third fireworks show will take place at midnight on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, part of a free concert by headliner LL Cool J, with additional performances by DJ Jazzy Jeff, Adam Blackstone, Dorothy, and Technician The DJ.)
“I think it is a fantastic symbol and representative of our country,” Arnott said of the bell. “It inherently reminds people that liberty is something we’ve got to protect or it will vanish.”
“It’s also really fun” she added, “when you actually get to ring it.”
This year’s New Year’s Eve events mark the official launch of the city’s much-anticipated semiquincentennial celebration honoring the nation’s 250th birthday — and if Arnott has her way, the sibling bell could feature prominently into the yearlong slate of events.
“Once we do it [for New Year’s Eve], we’re really hoping to kick it off with MLB, with FIFA,” Arnott said of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game and the FIFA World Cup, both of which will be hosted next year in Philadelphia.
“How cool would it be to do this for some of those events?”